Fire destroys shed and damages garage of Cameron Park home

FIREFIGHTERS USING TOOLS remove some tiles from a burned area on a garage at a home on Lamar Court in Cameron Park at about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. A storage shed next to the house was completely destroyed. The family was not home at the time of the fire and there were no injuries. Democrat photo by Shelly Thorene

A fire burned a shed and part of the garage of a house on Lamar Court in Cameron Park Tuesday afternoon.

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Water ran down the entrance to the cul de sac in large rivulets, the smell of smoke lingering in the air as two families — the tenants and the owners — stood in front of 3247 Lamar Court. A half-melted trash can, trash hanging out of a melted hole, revealed what had happened to the house.

Cameron Park Fire Department Engineer Tom Silva said they had been sent out on a call of an improvement fire — for example, a cigarette butt in a pile of bark — at 2:25 p.m. When they arrived, the exterior shed in the side yard on the right side of the house was on fire and was extending to the house. Within 20 minutes, the fire was controlled, Silva said.

“I’m just glad no one was home and everyone’s OK,” Carolyn Poer, the owner of the home, said. She noted the tenants were not at home but their pets were able to safely get away from the fire.

Firefighters swept large piles of leaves — mixed with a bit of ash — from the open garage. Inside, the damage was mostly confined to the right side wall of the garage. Shingles from the right edge of the roof and the spine of the roof were missing.

In front of what had, an hour before, been a gate to the backyard, a pile of damaged and destroyed items was being made; surviving items were being amassed in the front yard.

The power would take some time to be restored, Silva said, as the power line had been “fried” by the fire.

But the house was still standing. “It could have been worse,” Poer said.